Human beings seek to minimize neural costs by seeking stability, stasis, constancy and harmony – but this is suicidal – stability means ne is falling behind others who are not static. This ‘cognitive error’ is a remnant of our hunter-gatherer instincts and only europeans appear to have systematically overcome it – and even then, only a minority. And this is the source of our ‘european creativity’.
From Wikipedia:
The Red Queen hypothesis (also referred to as Red Queen’s, the Red Queen effect, Red Queen’s race, Red Queen dynamics) is an evolutionary hypothesis which proposes that organisms must constantly adapt, evolve, and proliferate in order to survive while pitted against ever-evolving opposing organisms in a constantly changing environment, as well as to gain reproductive advantage.
The hypothesis intends to explain two different phenomena: the constant extinction rates as observed in the paleontological record caused by co-evolution between competing species,“ and the advantage of sexual reproduction (as opposed to asexual reproduction) at the level of individuals.The phenomenon’s name is derived from a statement that the Red Queen made to Alice in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass in her explanation of the nature of Looking-Glass Land:
“Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place.”
Van Valen coined the hypothesis “Red Queen” because under this interpretation, populations have to “run” or evolve in order to stay in the same place – or else go extinct.